Adiba Nelson

Enter: Lemonade. [...] Beyoncé reminds us that she is as real a woman as the rest of us. She is a strong woman, yet made even stronger in her ability to start anew.

A: No one is perfect, B: Perceived perfection is a LIE, and C: THEY’RE CHILDREN FOR FUCK SAKE!

She unleashed a whole new level of #blackgirlmagic that I did not even realize I needed. And honey, if I didn't realize I needed it, well then hell, you know the world just wasn’t ready.

"I now had my seat of power, my throne, if you will. That’s why I customized my chair to look like a throne. And that’s why I liked it in my act: because I was truly in love with it and all that it represented for me. It was no longer a trap or a cage. It was freedom. It was power. It was sexy. And it was mine."

Want to go on a carbs and wine tour of Italy? Break out the leggings and go for it. This time is yours.

It is made up of women that I've known since I was 8, and women I met last week.

Black women have endured the unfathomable. We’ve watched our leaders be assassinated, and our hopes go with them. We’ve watched the nation’s leaders be assassinated, and watched our hopes float away with them too. We’ve buried our 5-year-old daughters after they were bombed to death in church, our 12-year-old sons who were playing in the park, and our 29-year-old daughters who were stopped for simple traffic violations.

Let me tell you something, ladies. There are a million people in this world ready to tear you down at any given moment, for reasons they know, and reasons they don’t know. They will all but sell the blood of their firstborn child to make sure you know that they think you ain’t shit.

So, by your reasoning, it’s safe to say that we should go into areas where one group of people are thought to be terrorizing another group of people, round up the terrorizers, and get them off the streets. OK, cool. I see your proposal, and I raise you “history."

That, my dear, is self-care 101: You must take care of yourself if you want to take care of others.